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While everyone was distracted by Song of Summer champ “Blurred Lines” and its many hot weather competitors (“Get Lucky,” “We Can’t Stop,” “Cups”), Lorde happened. What is Lorde, you ask? She’s a 16-year old singer from way Down Under who last week became the first solo female artist in seventeen years to topBillboard‘s “Alternative” song chart. Since being released in May, the video for her first song, “Royals,” has been viewed more than 6 million times. Her first album will be out at the end of next month. You should probably know who she is:

Who is Lorde …She’s a teen from New Zealand (“a beach suburb called Takapuna, which is on the north shore of Auckland,” to be more specific) who was discovered after a video of her singing Duffy’s “Warwick Avenue” for her school’s talent show was passed around and ended up with Scott Maclachlan, who soon became her manager. She was signed by Universal at the age of 12. Her real name is Ella Yelich-O’Connor: “When I was trying to come up with a stage name, I thought ‘Lord’ was super rad, but really masculine — ever since I was a little kid, I have been really into royals and aristocracy. So to make Lord more feminine, I just put an ‘e’ on the end! Some people think it’s religious, but it’s not.”

Is she influenced by traditional New Zealand music?Probably not. “Coming from New Zealand, all the music I listen to is not made by New Zealanders,” she told FADER. “People never come to New Zealand to play a show because it’s in the middle of nowhere.”

So she’s one of those artists. Not really. We wouldn’t go so far to call her Tumblrcore (see: Grimes, Kitty Pryde), but she certainly knows how to use a Tumblr properly. On a scale of famous young people, she’s closer to Tavi than she is to Kitty.

Does she have “pop potential”?Definitely. Her songs can be a bit gloomy, but they have extremely catchy hooks and lyrics and are just fun to sing: “But every song’s like gold teeth, grey goose, trippin’ in the bathroom / Blood stains, ball gowns, trashin’ the hotel room, / We don’t care, we’re driving Cadillacs in our dreams.” In addition, it would be unfairto ignore how beautiful she is (see: mermaid hair), and at 16 she’s got a jump on the competition. She’s also got the right famous admirers to help get the word out. Ryan Seacrest is a fan. So are Diplo, Selena Gomez, Jared Leto, Vanessa Hudgens, and Chloe Grace Moretz. A good rule of thumb is to never fully judge an artist before their first album (take Azealia Banks, for example), but we have a good feeling about this one.